How rich is rich? Richer than ever, it seems... so rich that according to The Wall Street Journal's Robert Frank, they've essentially formed their own elite country, that he in turn chooses to cover like a reporter on the foreign beat. We can all conjure images of fleets of Bentleys, yachts moored in exotic harbors, and private jets, but it's more than that now. The residents of Richistan (I'd link, but my Google Map search came up empty... huh?) — the Richistanis — have their own language, their own healthcare, their own travel system, their own culture. What's the most insane largess you've ever witnessed? If you were a zillionaire, what would your indulgences be?
Blog Of The Nation
I have no desire to ever be a part of the world or lifestyle you describe. It sounds a lot like highschool, people caring about cars, watches, clothes, buying things just to show them off to others. It sounds shallow and meaningless.
The last book I read on millionaires was The Millionaire Next Door, which talked about the frugal nature of the rich. This lifestyle is in stark contrast to the lifestyles of Richistanis, and I wonder if there are millionaire-next-door types who are entitled to be in Richistan yet shun it. Thoughts?
I grew up in the shrinking Middle class. I am still in the shrinking Middle class. My Mother in Law, who is married to a successful physician is upset because she is retiring and will no longer be able to afford a weekly housekeeper in addition to other things I consider oppulant.
It is clear that we are heading for a big burst, these Richistans are no different than the Oil Barrons. We'll have a deppression and the demand for goods and services will far outpace the supply because no one will know how to plant their own organic spinach, folks will starve in the Hamptons. However do you think oil prices got so high? Because the big guns that control our economy are willing to pay it. The scraps of trickle down economics are often spoiled by the time they reach the bottom.
Caller Sara's descriptions of the Hamptons, in which she seemed unable to find another adjective besides "astonishing", were in my opinion "disgusting". Which would have been a better word for her to use.
While the show has just started I am already nauseated by these people that are so rich that they may need a watch to tell time while they have already 20K watch already that any 2 year old could arrange!
I find this not only dis-tasteful and revolting - but I cannot help but think of all the people out there that could use a little extra money just to buy a weeks worth of groceries after already working 3 jobs to support their children. I am happy that philanthropy and charity donation is the new "black" and these folks get involved in their charities but if it's the fashionable thing you have to wonder how sincere?
With all the "extra large" toys these folks already have - you have to wonder how much of this excess is also contributing to the increase in landfills, oil consumption, etc.
No, I do not even imagine I will ever make enough money to buy even a dog bowl that these people probably have on their marble heated floors - but I would rather have a dog love me and eat out of an old butter bowl than live with all this extra crap you cannot take with you when you go.
My grandmother used to say, "you can't take it with you."
I would rather have my riches in the after life knowing that I have earned that than stepping on others on my way up the Richistan ladder of conspicuous consumption.
What about taxes? No one has mentioned the fact that the residents of Richistan get the biggest tax cuts while the rest of us "prols" work as hard or harder but still have to pay more taxes!
I think richness is a kind of addition. Richness is stored energy. Money could be out in the world giving people what they need to live and grow. Since it is being held, it is trapped energy. Energy likes to release. If kept confined, it builds up pressure. These are laws of energy. No one likes to feel the pressure of a trap. Do you know how it feels to have to trap love inside? To not be able to release it? It feels terrible. It is frustration. So, people who hold their money in keep trying to get what they think will make them more happy: more energy from more money. Actually, this makes the pressure worse. This is what addicts do. They don't realize the thing that gives them the temporary happiness keeps them in the long-term trap. If they released their hold and stopped the habit, they would be happier. They are too afraid to let go, like people who keep their love trapped inside themselves.
Dear Neal Conan and Robert Frank,
I heard you say that 'everyone' thinks they need 2X their current wealth to feel that they have enough. I am an integral part of that 'everyone' and am quite happy now. I have a garden, my health and my friends. I have a modest net worth but took an interim retirement and delved into my savings in order to promote sustainable agriculture and work on sustainability issues at the local level, where we intend to make a difference.
Please call if you would like to talk with a satisfied, hardworking person. I am in from the garden for a quick lunch before going back out to finish some mulching. After dark, I'll pick and grin with some local musicians, then work on a revenue projection for a seed selling project. Life is good with barely a six figure nest egg. It's partly attitude, partly thrift and partly acknowledgement that subsistence is good for the long haul.
Patricia
Epic Gardens
Bon Air, Virginia
Many of the allegedly rich are actually living far beyond their means, and find themselves between a rock and a hard place when a financial crisis like ill-health or job loss strikes. I have always been astounded by the arrogance of the wealthy, but even more so with their stupidity.
Just a reminder, although its fun to stereotype, the wealthy do not all fit into the same fancy box. We are not all, as one caller implied, heartless vampires who only care about making our next million. We do not all pray for lower taxes, drive huge gas guzzling vehicles, or look down on people with less money. I know lots of wealthy people who live modestly and use their money and status to do good in the world. Generalizing about ANY segment of society should be avoided because it tends to polarize people.
Your show today reminded me of an experience I had some years back. My husband and I had befriended neighbors who happened to be members of one of the wealthiest families in our state - if not the country. After being out to an event with them one evening, we had time left on the "babysitter 4-hr. minimum clock" and decided to stop for a nightcap at a local resort hotel. When we arrived, there was clearly a ball taking place - lots of sequins and tuxedos, mingling and elbow rubbing. Our friend (she) was obviously disjointed by the fact that she was unaware of the event. She quickly marched up to the first glamourous attendee she could find and irrately asked, "What disease is this?"
As a social worker, I decided then and there, I would forever stay in my pond...
Regarding the conversation about the "super-rich" on Tuesday, June 5, 2007...WHAT IS WRONG WITH PEOPLE?!?!?!
My husband's job has moved us from Oklahoma to New Jersey, then to Massachusetts, and now to Kansas. We also have family and professional ties in California, Texas, Iowa, Oregon, DC, North Carolina and Florida; so we're not exactly unaware of how things work in other parts of the country - at all points along the "wealth" spectrum. This afternoon's program REALLY sent me over the edge!
Doesn't anyone understand the difference between ENOUGH and TOO MUCH? Have we totally forgotten the distinction between NEED and WANT? We live in the wealthiest country in the world, yet the caller from The Hamptons even referred to the "abject poverty" in the midst of their community of excess and indulgence. Doesn't anyone recognize that this is WRONG?
It sounded as if most of the people calling/writing the program were more interested in how to get themselves into the super-rich club, or were concerned about how to give their born-wealthy children everything without spoiling them.
What is so distasteful about having ENOUGH, and sharing your excess? Where is the harm in expecting your children to EARN what they get? That seemed to work okay for the parents of those born-wealthy kids, or they wouldn't have been born super-rich in the first place, right?
Just because one has money, whether earned, inherited, or "created," is one REQUIRED to spend and consume to excess? Is one REQUIRED to waste and squander without regard to others or to the environment? Is one REQUIRED to denigrate others, flaunt one's wealth, and continually try to insulate oneself from the real world?
I will never be "wealthy" in financial terms, but I consider myself wealthy beyond measure in life: I have been married to the same generous, caring, dedicated man for 25 wonderful years, and am looking forward to at least another 25 years. We have always had a roof over our head (not a mansion; an apartment or house), food to eat (not caviar; chicken and hamburger), a car to drive (a Nissan, Chevy, or Saturn), and clothes to wear (off-the-rack, and often on clearance). We have good friends, who would drop everything at a moment's notice to help in an emergency -- and who have. We are all healthy, well-educated, and connected in our community.
My husband works full time, and has been with the same company for over 20 years. We have the opportunity to travel occasionally, and enough free time to enjoy each others' company right here at home. I have been fortunate to be able to supplement our income working part time and still be available to care for our child.
We have a beautiful, resourceful, charitable, compassionate and highly intelligent 10-year-old daughter who has, for her last three birthdays, asked her friends to bring new or gently used toys, books, and clothing for her to donate to our local community shelter -- instead of gifts for her. In her words, "I have enough ... I don't need any more. There are lots of other kids who need things worse than I do."
It didn't take a "special school" to teach my daughter to care ... it took a good example and a supportive environment. It didn't take a "wealth manager" to teach my husband and me how to balance our budget ... it took a firm grasp of reality, an understanding of the difference between ENOUGH and TOO MUCH, and a recognition of what we NEED versus what we WANT.
I don't consider myself an overly religious person, but I couldn't help noticing the words that sprang to mind as I listened to the show on Tuesday: GREED, PRIDE, GLUTTONY, SLOTH and ENVY. Gosh, where have we heard those before?
And a big THANK YOU to those writers before me for the general consensus that the super-rich not only suffer from the above-mentioned "deadly sins" but also from stupidity and immaturity!
Laurie above makes a point about taxes and I agree. The mega-rich have an obligation to give back to the society that allowed them to accumulate all of their wealth in the first place and the way to make that happen is through much higher capital gains taxes on the wealthy. These tax give-aways to the rich were started under Ronald Reagan, and Bush is more than happy to continue them. Our current tax policies are taking us to another guilded age.
I knew it was going to be a strange day when I awoke to find an overcast day, 15 degrees cooler than the day before. That's an odd occurrence for central California in the early part of June. I would soon discover that I had inadvertently stumbled into the Twilight Zone and what I heard on 'Talk of the Nation' only confirmed it.
First, we get a report about a bunch of convicted felons saying to 'take it easy' on Scooter Libby. As though the opinion of criminals, at least one of them confessing to lying during his own trial and another admitting to wanting to let Scooter off of the hook because he too wants to be granted a pardon, has anything to do with the serious nature of the issue before us. I mean, heck, if violent criminals would take it easy on Libby, why shouldn't the rest of us, right?
Then, to make matters even more bizarre, you interview Robert Frank about the lifestyles of the hopelessly out of touch. But for as out of touch as his subject was, it seemed closer to reality than Neal Conan's handling of the interview. I counted three occasions when a voice of reason spoke up that Neal and his guest summarily ignored or simply changed the subject.
The first came when the caller from the Hamptons noted that although there were all of these wondrous sights in the Hamptons, they still lived amidst 'abject poverty.' The closest we got to a comment on this was how wonderful the rich people are with their megalomania and obsessive compulsive control of the charity they provide. I would have liked to have heard a statistic of how many of them actually provide anything to charity and how much of their wealth they donate.
The second instance of dodging real journalism came when another caller told the story of how he married into money and how disgusted he was with how those people made their money. He characterized them as a collection of immoral and dishonest people who would do anything to expand their fortunes no matter how devastating it was to others involved. From here our guest took us into the plight of the 'new rich' and how troubling it was for them to teach their children proper work ethic. The solution, spend lots of money to send them to special schools.
The final and most startling part of the broadcast was when the last caller, a Professor of Public Policy, brought up the issue of how these people became rich. Frank's rebuttal was that if you ask the rich, they don't say that their wealth has come from new tax policy. Startling! I'm willing to bet that the convicts from the earlier segment would not admit their circumstances had an affect on their view of the Scooter Libby case either. Conveniently enough, there was no time to address this profoundly real issue.
Then again, I suppose this wasn't an episode of the 'Twilight Zone' after all. If Rod Serling had hosted it, a man unhappy with the censorship of dissenting political views during his time, he would have pressed the issue rather than sweeping it under the rug.
Maybe we should revise Serling's famous lines: There is a fifth dimension beyond that which is known to reason. It is a dimension as vast as your radio dial. It is the middle ground between avoidance and untruth, between poor reporting and purposefully misleading, and it lies between the pit of a man's fears and the darkness of manipulation. This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area we call Talk of the Nation.
The discussion on Tuesday rarely rose beyond fascination with the new rich and their lifestyle. The opportunity for a real discussion only came at the end with a comment from Sara in Syracuse, which was insufficiently addressed due to limited time. The show as a whole sounded more like a PR piece for the virtues of new wealth and consumption. NPR can do better.
It sounds wonderful - that is, if you are part of the click! I feel very poor in my day-to-day activities. I don't have liquidity. I tell my kids we can't afford Burger King sometimes, even though I do it, because it is just easier than saying it is bad for you constantly! I always tell my kids we don't have money for extra toys or new cars... (My husband drives a 11 year old truck and I drive a 9 year old mini-van.) We have worked very hard for our money, and have invested in real estate through the years. We have only taken one vacation since our honeymoon, and that is because I threatened my husband I would go with my girlfriends, if he didn't take me!
If we sold all our real estate, we would have about $4 million. The problem is, that capital gains and other taxes would suck up so much. I need an expert on how to cash out and not give it all to the tax man, so we could get a modest retirement, filled with family vacations! (I don't need a private jet or boat, but I do need some fun in the sun, with my toes in the sand, as Van Halen used to say!!!)
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